Bruining scoops Financial Planner of the Year

Western Australian financial planner Nick Bruining has served two terms and a total of four concurrent years on theFinancial Planning Association(FPA) board (the maximum allowable) and was an industry spokesman at this year’s Senate hearings into superannuation.

He also has a high media profile with a regular gig on drive-time radio in Perth every Tuesday afternoon and regular columns in theWest Australian(Money section),My Business MagazineandMoney Management. He contributes regularly toThe Sydney Morning HeraldandThe Ageand is often called upon by Channel 7 in Perth to comment on financial affairs in its news and current affairs programs.

But it wasn’t always so.

Before he entered the financial planning fray, Bruining armed himself with a degree in commerce from Curtin University and took a job with the Dick Smith group. This ultimately led him to set up quite a successful computer company with outlets in both Western Australia and South Australia.

But by the end of the 80s, he was looking for a career change.

On the advice of his wife’s uncle, who was anAMPagent, he entered the wide world of financial advising.

“I started as an AMP life adviser in 1989 and literally walked factories,” he says.

“I found it quite an interesting introduction but in amongst that, someone told me about the IAFP course in financial planning.”

Much to the amusement of his colleagues, Bruining embarked on the Diploma of Financial Planning course in 1990.

“I wanted to lead the charge into professionalism, rather than being dragged into it,” he says, “that’s why I embraced the course.”

In 1992, he joined Hillross, where he was content to stay for six years because “I could use other products that best suited my clients”.

But in 1998, following the dealer group’s introduction of Portfolio Care, Bruining took a long, hard look at his business.

“I had a close look at how I was being charged for dealer services, which were run out of Sydney. After evaluating what was the best thing for me and for my clients and on economic analysis and all the other analysis that you do, I decided the best thing was to get my own licence.”

He was told that the experience would be “difficult and scary”, but in reality he says it was anything but, and in 1998, N.C. Bruining & Associates was born.

Today, his business philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: “We genuinely put the client first.”

This can go as far as sitting in with clients at Centrelink and other meetings that affect a client’s financial position.

“We will do a lot of hand-holding for those who want it,” he says.

He also claims to be a straight-shooter.

“We don’t beat around the bush,” he says.

“If we make a mistake, we apologise and then we fix it. And that is how it should be. If you want to call yourself a professional, you must put the client first.”

Bruining concedes it is a tough world for financial planners at the moment, particularly in the wake of the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA)/Australian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) report and it is time to move beyond the rhetoric and take action.

“We need to demonstrate that we are professional,” he says.

“The future is in our own hands. If in two years time the ACA/ASIC survey says the same things it said this year, it’s all over.”

However, he also believes it is an incredibly exciting time for planners who “get it right”.

“We are in an extraordinary growth period,” he says.

“The potential is enormous and there is a definite need for advice.”

And if he drops dead tomorrow, Bruining hopes he will be remembered for helping the industry to escape what high profile planner Ray Griffin once described as “the cringe factor”.

“I hope people might say that I have portrayed to the general public what a professional financial planner is all about,” he says.

“I hope that I have gone some way to taking the cringe factor out of being a financial planner.”